The present invention relates generally to magnifying devices, and more particularly to a magnifying device which may be mounted on a hand-held video display apparatus or the like for magnifying the video display.
The advent of video display apparatus, such as calculators and video games, has led to the development of compact hand-held models or versions which generally include a rectangular housing adapted to be held in a hand of the user. The housing conventionally supports a video display exposed through an upper surface of the housing. Control levers, buttons and/or knobs are generally supported by the housing at convenient locations so as to enable an operator to readily manipulate the various controls with one hand while holding the video display housing in the other hand. A drawback to many hand-held video display apparatus of known design is that the video display, which may comprise an LCD screen, presents the displayed characters or scenes in relatively small scale so as to make it difficult for some persons to readily decipher the displayed characters or images. In such cases, a device adapted for cooperation with the hand-held video apparatus and operative to enhance recognition of the video display by magnification would greatly improve the usability of such video display apparatus by persons who otherwise would have difficulty recognizing the displayed characters or images.